


let the walls break down

by manchestereye (orphan_account)



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Sugar Daddy, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:08:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22063774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/manchestereye
Summary: uni fucks dan over and he doesn't know what to do. fortunately, phil is there to help.
Relationships: Dan Howell & Phil Lester, Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 1
Kudos: 13





	let the walls break down

**Author's Note:**

> happy new year !!! this was originally going to be my last fic of 2019 but i kinda forgot (even though it was in my reminders to post it on the 31st lmao) so this is now my first fic of 2020
> 
> also note: despite being in my first year of college i have no idea how fafsa and financial aid related things work, so any information is basically creative liberty. thanks to starboydjh and yiffandquiff for their helpful insight when i asked if this was unrealistic, and thanks to itsmyusualphannie for beta'ing just like always
> 
> this might become a series i have no idea 
> 
> i hope u enjoy!!!

dan wonders what the hell was he thinking when he declared his major as law. he was seventeen, he didn’t have to decide the minute he got accepted into the university. it’s not like it matters though, he already has his credits from freshman year and changing it now would be too much of a hassle.

his grades aren’t doing too great right now, and dan’s stressed about it. he doesn’t want his gpa to tank this semester, otherwise he’ll be kicked out of his major. not that he wants to stay in that major, but again, it’s easier to stay there.

dan’s known to be a people-pleaser. he doesn’t want to disappoint his parents and the rest of his family that were so happy to see him going into law, which makes him feel guilty for even considering the switch. 

“you can do this,” dan tells himself as he blinks his eyes and reads yet another chapter from his criminal law textbook. it’s 3 o’clock in the morning, and dan’s almost falling asleep. he’s been awake since 7 am, so he should definitely be asleep right now. he insists on studying though, because he’s too stressed out about the final.

finals are in a week, and he hasn’t even begun studying for his other tests. he wants to roundhouse kick himself into the sun for waiting until this semester to do his math and science gen ed requirements. alas, there’s nothing he can do about it now since he is already taking said classes.

_ shit _ , he thinks as he realises he still needs to do a final paper for a different law course. he’s not even taking as many classes as the other people in his batch, and yet he still can’t keep up.

a mug is placed right in front of him, and he turns his head to see his roommate standing behind him.

dan moved in with phil shortly after his first semester started. he was originally staying at home, but his house was too loud and his family would pester him nonstop, making it hard to study. his little brother opened his door without knocking one time, and needless to say, dan really needed to get out of there before anything else of that nature happened again. 

“oh, hey phil, i thought you were asleep,” dan says as he rubs his eyes.

“i was, but i woke up to go to the bathroom and i saw that your light was still on, so i made you some hot chocolate.”

“oh, thanks.” dan’s too tired to say anything else, so he takes the mug and drinks from it, downing the drink in one gulp. he doesn’t even notice that phil added the tiny marshmallows that he loves so much. usually phil would steal them from the cabinet and then forget to replace them, so the marshmallows are rare in the apartment.

“you should go to bed,” phil suggests. “you’re not going to retain any of this information if you’re this tired.”

dan groans. “i hate law, what was i thinking? stupid seventeen-year-old dan.”

phil puts a hand on his shoulder and rubs it. “i don’t know. you’re just saying that because you’ve been up so late studying. go to bed now, you’ll thank yourself in the morning, even if it’s just four hours.”

he grumbles in response and just shoos phil out of the room before turning the light off and lying down on his bed.

-

in retrospect, waiting until the week before to study was not a great idea. it might have worked in high school and for the first year of college, surprisingly, but it doesn’t fly with the courses that dan’s taking now.

throughout the exams and lab, dan found himself scrambling for answers and unsure of the protocol. he’ll never forget the wrath his professor gave him when he turned in his half-completed final paper.

after his last class, dan calls in sick to work and sits on the couch. he then turns on the tv as he thinks about every single time his life went wrong. normally he’s the one that would bitch about wasting electricity, but he cannot be bothered right now. 

phil comes home at around 8, and finds dan still on the couch. he’s eating ice cream and crying now.

“what’s wrong?” phil sighs.

“school sucks,” dan sniffles. he puts his cup of ice cream on the coffee table before grabbing a pillow and screaming into it.

phil takes his coat off and places it on the coat rack before sitting down next to dan.

“is this about final exams?” he asks. dan just nods and picks up his ice cream again.

“the grades will be posted soon, you probably didn’t do as bad as you thought you did,” phil tries to console dan, to no avail.

“my life is over,” dan wails. phil just puts a hand on his shoulder.

“it’s not the end of the world, but there’s still time for you to get better. i switched my major twice and somehow i’m still on track to graduate on time.” phil’s not sure if dan was actually listening to him or if he was focused on the ice cream, so he doesn’t bother trying to talk about it anymore.

the following week, dan gets an email saying that his grades have been posted to his transcript. he nervously opens his laptop to load the site, hands slightly shaking. phil’s sitting on the other end of the couch checking his own grades. he can tell that phil’s trying to hide his reactions for his sake, but he doesn’t have the energy to call him out on it. phil’s just trying to be considerate, even if it’s in the wrong direction.

dan isn’t surprised to see that he failed both of the law courses he took this semester, and barely passed his science course. though, he is surprised that he pulled a c+ in math. he doesn’t even like math, and he barely remembered anything from high school math.

passing math just feels like the cherry on top of the ice cream sundae disaster that is his life.

he shuts his laptop and heads back to his room to pack his things for christmas break, ignoring phil’s calls for lunch.

phil knocks on his door about an hour later, handing him his portion of the takeout. dan grabs his wallet sitting on his desk to pay phil back, but phil doesn’t accept it.

“you deserve free food right now,” phil says. dan just smiles weakly.

-

dan and phil return to their apartment the day after new year’s. phil gets there around lunch time while dan gets there around late afternoon, almost evening. as much as he doesn’t like being at home, he is also a horrible procrastinator and not great at packing.

they tell each other stories of what happened during their time apart, and try to brag about which of their mothers smothered them more. spoiler alert, it was phil’s. they talk so much that they miss their normal dinner time. by the time they’re done, almost all of the restaurants are closed for take-out other than the 24-hour mcdonald’s a few minutes away. 

neither of them feel like driving, so they play a game of rock paper scissors to determine who’s shotgun. phil wins, and dan can’t be bothered to care because he likes seeing phil’s happy face.

the person serving them at the drive-thru turns out to be one of phil’s classmates, and they make a little bit of small talk while waiting for the food. dan doesn’t really bother paying attention though, since it’s boring chemistry jargon. sorry, phil.

the short conversation prompts phil to ask dan about his uni plans the moment they leave the mcdonalds. dan appreciates that phil cares, and is a little bit shocked that he cared this much, but it’s just not the right time.

“i don’t know.” dan shrugs as he pulls a french fry out of the bag. “i’ll decide later. i’ll probably just take a break or whatever.”

phil accepts that answer for now, but reminds dan that the last day to add or drop classes is the day after tomorrow, a week before classes start up again.

in truth, dan doesn’t really want to go back to school, but he’d already taken courses so he figures it’d be worth it to finish a degree of some sort. he doesn’t want to waste more money, so he’d decided over winter break that taking a sabbatical and finding a passion or an area of interest would benefit him.

“yeah, yeah, i didn’t sign up for classes in the first place anyways,” dan says, still unwilling to talk about his university issues right now. 

the rest of the drive home is pretty much silent except for phil’s spotify playing a radiohead album on the car radio. he’s got one of those cool cars that has bluetooth or whatever, and dan’s slightly jealous.

dan can’t remember which album is on right now, he doesn’t really bother to pay attention to those details and just likes listening to the music with phil. phil has great music taste, but he likes muse more though.

-

things go alright for the next few months. dan still hasn’t found a major that he’s interested in yet, but he wants to try and explore the humanities field. he did great in high school on those courses, so it wouldn’t hurt to try taking more classes in that field. he actually liked doing that more than law, so it’s a win-win situation.

when dan opens his student account to try and sign up for fall classes, he notices that there’s a message telling him that he needs to set up a meeting with his advisor before he can add anything. he figures that it must be because he’s failed a course or whatever, so he books the appointment for the following week.

phil drives him there, as he’s too nervous and shaky to go behind the wheel. it’s also convenient since phil had to get some groceries.

“you’ll be fine, dan. even if your advisor is a little bit of a jerk, you can just see someone else next time. failing a class isn’t the end of the world,” he quips. dan just stares outside the window.

dan checks in for his appointment and sits on one of the chairs in the lobby as he waits.

“howell?”

dan looks up from his phone to see his advisor standing in the doorway. he gets up and follows her back to her office.

“so, daniel, i see that you failed some classes last term? that’s alright, we can have you retake them or take some other law courses if you don’t think you’re ready for that yet,” she says with a smile on her face. dan can’t tell if she’s being genuinely nice or not.

“actually, i’m changing my major...to, uh, humanities,” dan says meekly. “that’s why i took a break this semester.”

her smile falters a little bit. dan can tell that she’s judging him for not continuing his law major.

“alright, we can devise a new academic plan based on the courses you have already taken. you’ll still graduate within four years if you’re concerned about that, and your gpa will definitely improve by then.”

dan takes a sigh of relief at the sound of that. he didn’t really care about anything else, he just wanted to be able to change majors without too much hassle.

“now, do you have a plan to pay for your classes next semester? you’re not under any financial aid program right now, which is another reason why the hold was placed on your account.”

wait, what?

dan looks at her, unable to comprehend what she just said. “i’m sorry?”

“you failed to fill out the forms that said you were going to take a sabbatical, so financial aid gave your package away,” she explains. “you’d have to apply for fafsa again, and that’s going to be a lot more difficult since you’re already in your second year.”

dan looks like he’s about to cry, so his advisor stands up and opens the door for him to get out.

“i suggest you think about how to pay your tuition and fees before we come up with a new plan.”

dan can see that she’s still smiling, and he makes a  _ tch  _ sound. he wants to wipe that smile off her face.  _ what a bitch. _

he gets up to leave and calls phil to tell him to come back and pick him up.

-

“what happened?” phil asks when dan steps in the car.

“i don’t have financial aid anymore because i didn’t know that there was a formal process to take a break or whatever,” dan grumbles.

“do you want to vent about it or do you want to talk about something else?”

dan shakes his head. “i don’t know. let’s just go home, i wanna take a nap.”

“you have work later tonight,” phil reminds him.

dan just waves him off. “i’ll call in sick again.”

it was a risky idea to call in sick when he wasn’t actually sick, as there was a possibility that his manager would look into it, but dan cannot be bothered to care. 

he doesn’t know how to feel about this situation. on one hand, he doesn’t seem too enthused to go back to school; but at the same time, he just wants his degree out of the way. he’s not going to beg his parents to pay his tuition, not after his dad yelled at him to get off of his ass and pay for it himself last year.

a logical solution would be to just save up some more money until he can pay for it without the financial aid, but that would probably just make him miserable. his job as a sales associate does not pay enough to cover his tuition and fees.

another solution would be to just transfer to a community college, but that would still be a hassle since the community college doesn’t have as many courses as the university.

dan might as well drop out at this point. he’s not going to do it right now, but dropping out just seems like the best option for him. he’ll think about it until the signups for fall semester classes close.

“what are you thinking?” phil asks after a few minutes of driving.

dan shrugs. “i don’t know what to do.”

“i could pay for your classes maybe?” phil suggests. “until you have the money to pay for it?”

dan looks at him incredulously. “phil, are you insane? you’re paying for your own classes and rent!”

phil blinks.

“did i not tell you that my parents were kath and nigel lester? lester inc?”

dan feels his heart pounding. well, that explains the fancy car and the nice apartment. lester inc. is a famous business company of some sorts, from what dan’s heard.

“no,” dan says, trying to conceal his shock. surely his friend would tell him that kind of information. he figures it’s just phil’s forgetfulness, so he lets it slide. “besides, that would be a lot of money, i wouldn’t want you to feel responsible for paying for it.”

“dan, that’s - “ phil cuts himself off when a bird flies past and poops on the windshield. he can deal with that when they get home. “it’s not something you should have to worry about. you’re my friend, i don’t want you to be struggling.”

dan blushes at that. he’s so happy, he could kiss phil right now.

huh? since when did he think about kissing his friends?

since now, apparently.

that’s another problem to deal with later.

the moment dan and phil get to their apartment, dan hugs phil tightly and says ‘thank you’ repeatedly. he also promises to make it up to him, to which phil says ‘don’t worry about it.’

**Author's Note:**

> thank u for reading  
> come find me at sudden-sky.tumblr.com


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